Download Working Class Rosies: Women Industrial Workers during World War II

Economic History Association
Working Class Rosies: Women Industrial Workers during World War II
Author(s): Sherrie A. Kossoudji and Laura J. Dresser
Source: The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 52, No. 2 (Jun., 1992), pp. 431-446
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Economic History Association
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Working Class Rosies: Women
Industrial Workers during World War II
SHERRIE
A. KossoUDJI
AND LAURA J. DRESSER
Afterjoining the industrialworkforceduringWorldWar II, women disappeared
from industrialemployment with postwar reconversion. This article uses data
from Ford Motor Company employee records to describe female industrial
workers, their work historiesbefore Ford, and their exit patternsfrom Ford. We
draw a more complete picture of these industrial workers and discuss the
differencesbetween those who chose to leave Ford and those who left involuntarily. Contraryto popularmyth it was housewives, along with African-American
and older women, those with the fewest outside opportunities,who were more
likely to be laid-off.
Puzzles in economic history cast their shadows far into the future.
Such is the case with the retreatof women from industrialemployment after World War II. Women were heavily recruited into industry
during war conversion (after Pearl Harbor) and returned to more
traditionaljobs or to homemakerstatus duringand after reconversion
(late 1944 and 1945). Forty-five years later we still do not understand
why and how women gave up these lucrative industrialjobs.
Two theories offer opposing explanations. The traditional supply
theory suggests that women were drawn into industriallabor markets
during extraordinary times and then voluntarily retreated to their
traditionalroles after the war. The increase in supply was a patriotic
ratherthan an economic act and the subsequentwithdrawalwas due to
a resumptionof personal preferences or a response to the pressures of
a feminine ideology. The more recently conceived demand theory
asserts that workingclass women respondedto high industrialwages by
changing occupations but were pushed out after the war as male
managers and union leaders used seniority rules and institutional
prerogative to return to an all male work force. This retrenchment
occurred in spite of evidence that women's productivitywas as high as
men's and that women representeda lower cost alternative.In this view
managementpursued a political ratherthan an economic agenda.
Who were the women working during World War II and did they
voluntarily or involuntarily leave their industrial jobs? Were they
The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 52, No. 2 (June 1992). ? The Economic History
Association. All rightsreserved. ISSN 0022-0507.
SherrieKossoudjiis an Assistant Professorof Economicsand Social Work. LauraDresser is a
graduatestudent in the joint Economics/SocialWork Program.Both are at The University of
Michigan,Ann Arbor,MI 48109-1220.We are gratefulto WarrenC. WhatleyandGavinWrightfor
giving us access to the Ford employee records, and to Elyce Rotellaand the editorsfor valuable
comments. This researchwas fundedin partby a ResearchPartnershipgrantfrom the Rackham
GraduateSchool of The Universityof Michigan.
431
432
Kossoudji and Dresser
middle-class housewives whose normal work lives in the home were
interruptedby the extraordinarylabor requirementsof WorldWar ILor
were they working class women who found their range of job opportunities suddenly expanded by the reductionin the traditionalwhite male
labor supply? This paper attempts to sort out these conflictingtheories
by providinga descriptionof women industrialworkersat one firm:The
Ford Motor Company.
The "patriotic" supply theory assumes that women who were drawn
into industrial labor during World War II identified themselves as
housewives. War mobilizationrequiredtapping new sources of industriallabor:immigrantmales fromthe south, African-Americanmen, and
women. When male labor sources were exhausted, both industry and
governmentignoredworkingclass women and identifiedhousewives as
the relevant recruitable labor force. Even so, industrial managers
remainedreluctantto hire women because, among other reasons, they
believed that women did not have the strengthor aptitudefor industrial
work.1
The governmenttapped "marriedwomen without childrenunder the
age of ten as the best source of workers for the durationof the war."
Governmentpolicy makersof the WarProductionBoard's (WPB)labor
division put forth the idea of recruiting"large numbersof women who
do not normally consider themselves a part of the industrial labor
supply."2 The WPB was convinced that the supply response of these
women would be temporary, "There is little doubt that women will be
requiredto leave theirjobs at the end of the war to permitthe returnof
men to their jobs as they are released from the armed forces."3 The
government saw its task to make reluctant workmates of women and
industrialmanagementand unions. This unholy alliance was necessary
because of the war effort, and feasible because it was only "for the
duration." Everyone would go back to their preferredpositions after
the war. As a result, the labor recruitment campaign focused on
housewives and a famous propagandapamphlet- "WhatJob is Mine on
the Victory Line?"-gave domestic attributes to more than thirty
industrialjobs.
Revisionist studies, which began in the 1970's, attemptedto debunk
the myth of the middle class housewife who gladly quit riveting and
returnedhome at the war's end. Sheila Tobias and Lisa Anderson set
the tone for these studies: "In our view, the conventional story of
1 Among other reasons cited were the necessity of creatingfacilities for women, retoolingfor
women's strengthand bodies, the possibilityof sexual attractionand disruptionof productionon
the shop floor, and women's absenteeism.
2 Letter from the Detroit regional director of the WPB to the Michigan Manufacturer's
Association in July 1942.Quotedin Milkman,Genderat Work,p. 53.
3 Quoted in Honey, CreatingRosie the Riveter, p. 26. See p. 228 for a listing of numerous
governmentstudies coming to the same conclusion.
Women Workers during World War II
433
Rosie's [the riveter] wartimecareer not only ends incorrectly, but it is
an inaccuratedescriptionof who was workingand why." This and other
studies reconstructedthe wartimeexperiences of women and arrivedat
very differentconclusions.4They firstnoted that a significantproportion
of women who were working in manufacturingduring the war had
already been workingbefore the war althoughin differentoccupations.
These women jumped at the chance to acquire high paying industrial
jobs over their previous service or clerical employment.
The entry into the labor force of married housewives was not
insignificant,but Women's Bureau surveys conducted late in the war
buttress the revisionist argumentabout the kind of women who were
working. Of all the women employed in Marchof 1944, 61 percent had
been working the week before Pearl Harbor, 17 percent had been
students, unemployed, too young or unable to work, and only 22
percent had been housewives. Group I manufacturing(major war
manufacturing)had the highest percentage of women who had been
outside the labor force in the week before Pearl Harbor(49.1 percent).
Even so, 24 percent of GroupI workers had been workingin the same
manufacturinggroupin 1941,25 percenthad come from other industries
or other manufacturinggroups, 31 percent had been housewives, and 21
percent had been too young, students, or unemployed.5
The second point of the revisionist studies is that while housewives
may fit the stereotype of those who were voluntarilytemporarymembers of the labor force, those women who had been previously working
expected to continue working and wanted to keep their high paying
industrialjobs. "Thus Frances Perkins and Frederick Crawfordmight
be rightabout the magnetof the Americanhome for formerhousewives,
but they were wrongaboutthe power of the home to attractthose whose
working lives had antedated Pearl Harbor and those who had gone
directly from school to work."6 In 1944and 1945the Women's Bureau
conducted home interviews with workingwomen in ten war production
areas in order to determine their post-war labor market expectations
and facilitate post-war planning. In Detroit, 85 percent of the women
who had been employed before the war intended to keep working
afterwards, as did 85 percent of those who had been students and 58
percent of those who had been housewives. The percentageof AfricanAmericanwomen who wanted to keep working(89 percent) was much
higher than for white women (75 percent) in Detroit.7
Yet, management, with the cooperation of unions, laid off women
'
Tobias and Anderson, "What Really Happened?". See also Anderson, WartimeWomen,
Milkman, Gender at Work, Honey, Creating Rosie the Riveter, and Kesselman, Fleeting
Opportunities.
U.S. Departmentof Labor, "Changesin Women'sEmployment."
Tobias and Anderson, "WhatReally Happened?"p. m9-16.
7 U.S. Departmentof Labor, "WomenWorkers."Tables 1-8 and IV-6.
5
6
434
Kossoudji and Dresser
workers at rates that were far higher than the lay-off rates for men.
Where these women ended up is still a subject for speculation. Again,
Tobias and Anderson present the first volley; "Our guess is that Rosie
did not run to the suburbs so much as fall into a lower-paying, more
traditionalfemale job after the war. Since we know that by 1950 the
percentage of employed women was almost back to the wartime peak,
our suspicion is that Rosie stopped riveting, but she did not stop
working."8
THE FORD MOTOR COMPANY AND THE SAMPLE
By the second year of U.S. entry into war, Detroit was one of the
major recipients of governmentwar contracts. The Ford Motor Company became deeply involved by producingwar-relatedtransportation
vehicles and armaments. Indeed, Willow Run, the bomber plant, was
built by the Federal Government.
Ford historically excluded women from shop floor employment.
Monthly payroll documents from Ford's River Rouge plant, covering
the period from January 1940 through July 1942, show that out of a
monthly average of over 80,000 hourly (shop floor) employees there
were never more than 45 women workers. At the peak of River Rouge
employment,July 1943,women were 12 percent of a work force of over
93,000, and the proportionrose over the succeeding months to a high of
16 percent. Yet by December of 1946 women were less than I percent
of all hourly employees at Rouge.
The subsample of women workers is drawn from a larger sample of
Ford shopfloor employees, the Whatley-Wrightsample of all Ford
employees who had left the firmby December, 1947.The 314 women in
our sample were shop floor workers at one of the four Detroit area
plants (Lincoln, HighlandPark, River Rouge, and Willow Run).
Althoughthe records start in the late 1800sthe war cohort is the only
useful one for women. There were only 17 women in the sample before
1942and dates at which they were hiredrangedfrom 1917to 1938.There
were no women in the 1945 to 1947 hiring cohort. The war cohort is
furtherdivided into four entry cohorts: those hired in 1942,the first half
of 1943, the second half of 1943, and 1944.9These women were drawn
from either the randomsampleor an oversamplingof African-American
workers. Thus, the proportion of women in our sample who were
African-American(14.3 percent) is not representative of the racial
composition of the Ford employee population, but is representativeof
African-Americanfemale workers.
8 Tobias and Anderson, "WhatReally Happened?"p.
m9-3.
9 Sample truncationbiases are relevantconcerns for this sample especially as the entry year
approaches 1947. But we are confident that truncationbias does not exist for women. All
examinations of company, union, and government statistics reinforce the interpretationthat
women virtuallydisappearedfrom the shop floor by the end of the war.
Women Workers during World War II
TABLE
435
I
DEMOGRAPHIC CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN WORKERS,
BY RACE AND BY YEAR HIRED
Marital Status
Single
Married
Divorced
Widowed
Age at Hiring
under 20
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40 or over
Years of Education
less than 8
8-11
12
13 or more
Region of Birth
Northeast
Midwest
Southeast
West
Black
White
1942
IS"half
1943
2nd half
All
1943
1944
33.2
59.7
2.3
4.8
33.3
50.0
4.8
11.9
33.1
61.0
1.9
3.7
33.8
55.4
4.6
6.2
31.7
61.5
2.9
3.8
39.0
58.0
0.0
3.0
22.0
65.9
2.4
9.8
11.8
29.9
17.5
14.6
11.1
15.0
8.9
22.2
26.7
22.2
13.3
6.7
12.3
31.2
16.0
13.4
10.8
16.4
9.2
21.5
20.0
13.9
15.4
20.0
11.2
31.8
16.8
12.1
14.0
14.0
13.9
37.6
17.8
13.9
5.9
10.9
12.2
19.5
14.6
24.4
9.8
19.6
29.2
33.7
26.7
10.4
34.3
37.1
11.4
17.1
28.5
33.2
28.9
9.5
18.0
37.7
32.8
11.5
30.2
29.2
27.1
13.5
35.1
36.2
22.3
6.4
29.7
32.4
27.0
10.8
8.1
52.6
38.7
0.7
4.4
22.2
73.3
0.0
8.7
57.9
32.5
0.8
3.2
84.1
12.7
0.0
5.9
47.5
46.5
0.0
13.8
43.7
40.4
2.1
7.7
35.9
56.4
0.0
Source: Subsample of the Whatley-Wright sample of Ford hourly employees.
WOMEN EMPLOYEES AT FORD-DEMOGRAPHIC
CHARACTERISTICS
Nearly 60 percent of the women workers at Ford were married. As
the first panel in Table I shows, white women were more likely to be
marriedthan African-Americanwomen but they were no less likely to
be single. The difference in marital status arises because nearly 12
percent of the African-Americanwomen but less than 4 percent of the
white women were widows. There is some evidence of an early
resistance to hiringmarriedwomen-the proportionmarriedin the 1942
cohort was lower than in other years-but it was an insignificantbarrier.
Ford's proportionof marriedwomen was consistently higher than that
of the Detroit female laborforce as a whole. Of the Detroit female labor
force in March of 1944, 42.8 percent were single, 12.9 percent were
widowed or divorced, and 44.2 percent were married.'0
Most of the women employees at Ford were under 30 years old.
Nearly 58 percent of the African-Americanwomen and nearly 60
percent of the white women were in this age group. The second panel of
Table I provides some evidence that Ford was reluctant to hire older
and younger African-Americanwomen. Only 6.7 percent of them, but
over 16 percent of other women, were age 40 or over, and only 8.9
10 U.S.
Departmentof Labor, "Changesin Women'sEmployment,"Table 10.
436
Kossoudji and Dresser
percent of the African-Americanwomen, but 12.3 percent of the white
women, were under age 20. Contraryto popular belief, older women
were not the last resort of management.Twenty percent of the 1942
cohort was age 40 or over. As is true in the overall population, marital
status and age are highly correlated. Almost 68 percent of the single
women but only 30 percentof the marriedwomen were underage 25. By
contrast, nearly 18 percentof the marriedwomen but less than 5 percent
of the single women were age 40 or over.
Hiring patterns by education reflect the differences between the
African-Americanand white populationand their differentialtreatment
by Ford. African-Americanwomen were more likely than other women
to have less than 12 years of schooling and they were much less likely
to have a high school degree. Only 11.4percentof the African-American
women but 28.9 percent of the white women had exactly 12 years of
education. At the top of the educationalladder, however, the patternis
reversed. Over 17 percent of the African-Americanwomen but only 9.5
percent of the white women had more than a high school education.
Since the proportionof African-Americanwomen with more than a high
school degree in the Detroit area at this time was only 4 percent, this
figure either represents a practice at Ford of requiringan educational
premium for African-Americanwomen (although this seems to be
contradictedby the higherproportionswith low levels of education) or
the fact that opportunitiesfor African-Americanwomen in the greater
Detroit area were such that a job at Ford was the preferredoption for
these well educated women.
These different educational backgroundsalso reflect differences in
region of birth which varied significantlyby race and entry cohort.
African-Americanwomen workers were born overwhelmingly in the
South (73.3 percent) while white women workers were born mostly in
the Midwest (57.9 percent), and only about one-thirdof them were born
in the South. Althoughinitiallyalmost all women hiredwere born in the
Midwest (84.1 percent), as the war went on, higher proportionswere
born in the South. Over 56 percent of the 1944 cohort was southernborn. These percentages appearto reflect African-Americanmigration
during the 1920s and 1930s rather than wartime migration. AfricanAmerican women (48.5 percent) and white women (51.1 percent) were
almost equally likely to have resided in Detroit for more than 10 years
and African-Americanwomen were more likely than white women to
have resided in Detroit for between one and ten years. Since over 26
percent of the white women had been in Detroit for less than one year,
it is likely that theirs representsthe recent migrationexperience.
WOMEN EMPLOYEES AT FORD-WORK
AND WORK HISTORIES
The principalassumptionseparatingthe supply and demand hypotheses is the pre-war economic identity of the wartime industrialwork-
Women Workers during World War II
437
TABLE 2
INDUSTRY OF EMPLOYMENT BEFORE FORD: BY RACE AND BY YEAR HIRED
Industry
All
Black
White
1942
1st half
1943
half
1943
1944
Service
White collar or retail
Manual
Manufacturing
Personal service
Housewife
Student or
unemployed
6.5
23.9
3.9
32.9
10.0
17.7
5.2
4.7
27.9
0.0
20.9
11.6
25.6
9.3
6.7
23.2
4.5
34.8
9.7
16.5
4.5
12.3
24.6
4.6
24.6
15.4
15.4
3.1
1.0
22.8
3.8
33.3
11.4
20.0
7.6
7.0
20.0
4.0
36.0
9.0
19.0
5.0
10.0
35.0
2.5
37.5
0.0
12.5
2.5
Valid Sample Size
310
43
267
65
105
100
40
2nd
Source: Subsample of the Whatley-Wright sample of Ford hourly employees.
force. Were these women having a brief flingwith wage employmentor
were they working class women respondingto high industrialwages?
New employees at Ford reportedon up to three previous employers,
the start and end dates of eachjob, and his or her trade. Over 77 percent
of these women had at least one previousemployer, 41 percent had two,
and 18 percent had three. Those without a previous employer listed
housewife, unemployed, or not yet available-in school, but specific
past occupations are unknown. Polk's city directoryof Detroit for 1940
was used to categorizethe industryof employmentwhen the employer's
name did not make it obvious. The trade blank, however, was almost
never filled in for women. So we do not know what kind of jobs these
women held within their industry. A woman who worked for the
Hudson Motor Companycould have been a secretary, but her previous
In addition, the start and
industry would be listed as manufacturing.1"
end dates were often not filled in. As a result, we categorized women's
previous histories in four ways-YES, last employment ended in 1940
or after; NO, BUT BEFORE, end date of last employment was before
1940;MAYBE, no dates listed with past employers;and NO, no known
previous jobs. Exploratorywork suggests that many of those categorized as MAYBE had been employed after 1940, the MAYBE and YES
groups are usually considered together in our exposition.12
As already noted, more than three-fourthsof Ford's women employees had at least one previous employer listed. Table 2 reports the
1 The personal service category should be viewed with considerable skepticism as to the
homogeneityof employmentit represents.This categoryonly indicatesthatthe previousemployer
was a person's name. While it was often Mrs. So and So and this can reasonablybe assumed to
representdomestic labor, it was also often Dr. Such and Such. We do not know whether the
employee was Dr. Such and Such's maidor bookkeeper.
12 For example, 46 percentof the women underage 20 and 27 percentof the women age 20 to 24
fall into the MAYBEcategoryand they accountfor over 47 percentof all MAYBEs. These are the
women least likely to have been in a positionto be workingbefore 1940.
438
KossoudJi and Dresser
industryof last employmentby race and by entry year at Ford. Several
features of these histories deserve to be noted. First, nearly a thirdof all
employees had previous experience in manufacturing(althoughwe do
not know theirjobs). The percentagein manufacturingin the 1942entry
cohort was 24.6 percent and it rose to nearly 38 percent by 1944.
Second, while 15 percent of Ford's female labor force was drawnfrom
personal service in 1942, this figuredeclined to zero by 1944. The flight
out of personal service during World War II, particularly among
African-Americanwomen has been well established in the literature.13
Given the reluctance of employers, the time lag of the propaganda
effort, and the occupationalmobilityduringthe war, it is not surprising
that the percentage of women who were housewives was low in 1942,
peaked in 1943, and then declined dramaticallyby 1944.
The distribution of industry for African-Americanwomen is quite
differentfrom ex ante expectations. Accordingto the Women's Bureau,
over 32 percent of all African-Americanwomen age 14 or over were
employed in 1940; 70 percent of them were employed in service
occupations, about 16 percent in semi-skilled occupations, and 12
percent in agriculturalemployment.14 Ford appearedto attract(or hire)
African-Americanwomen with atypicalwork histories (althoughit may
be that wartime occupationalmobility had already altered the industry
of last employment to make it appear atypical). Only 11.6 percent of
African-Americanwomen were in personal service, a figure that is not
so differentfrom the 9.7 percent for other women. In addition, a higher
percentage of African-American women (27.9 percent) than other
women (23.2 percent) were in white collarjobs (often school systems or
government) or retail employment. It appears that a much higher
percentage of African-Americanwomen were housewives-25.6 percent comparedwith 16.5 percent-but this illusion disappearswhen the
timing of these jobs is considered. Many more marriedwhite women
reportedthey heldjobs many years priorto their hiringat Ford. Finally,
a higher percentage of African-Americanwomen (9.3 percent) were
students before coming to Ford-even thoughthere were relativelyfew
of them hired before the age of 20. Many of these women may be those
who had some college education.
It is less importantto the question at hand that women had a specific
previous employer than when they were most recently employed. A
smaller percentage of African-Americanwomen (14 percent) than of
white women had worked (with certainty, coded YES) since 1940 and
their working rate did not vary by maritalstatus. Single white women,
on the other hand, were much more likely to have held a recentjob (52
percent) than either marriedwhite women (38 percent) or divorced or
13
14
U.S. Departmentof Labor, "Negro WomenWarWorkers."
Ibid., pp. 18-19.
Women Workers during World War II
TABLE
439
3
PERCENTAGE RECENTLY EMPLOYED BY AGE GROUPS BY YEAR HIREDa
(PERCENTAGES WITH YES AND MAYBE)
Age at Hiring
All
1942
Is' half
1943
under 20
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40 or older
89.2
73.4
70.9
58.7
60.0
42.6
100.0
78.6
92.3
77.8
20.0
30.8
83.3
70.6
44.5
53.8
66.7
40.0
half
1943
1944
100.0
71.1
72.2
57.2
83.3
36.4
60.0
87.5
100.0
50.0
100.0
75.0
2nd
a
Recently Employed means having had another job that ended in 1940 or later.
Source: Subsample of the Whatley-Wright sample of Ford hourly employees.
widowed white women (33 percent). When the YES and MAYBE
percentages are added together, marriedAfrican-Americanwomen (53
percent) and marriedwhite women (59 percent)had more similarrecent
employment rates. MarriedAfrican-Americanwomen (5 percent) were
less likely than marriedwhite women (13 percent)to have reporteda last
job that ended before 1940. Women whose last jobs ended before 1940
were likely to have been housewives most recently. If women whose
last job ended before 1940 are added to those who reported being
housewives then white women were more likely to be housewives than
were African-Americanwomen. Single women were most likely to have
held ajob in the recent past; nearly87 percentof the single white women
and 71 percent of the single African-Americanwomen probablyworked
since 1940.
Table 3 shows the percent in each age group who were employed in
anotherjob since 1940. As one moves up the age cohorts, the trend is
generally toward less recent participation; over 89 percent of the
eighteen and nineteen year olds but only 43 percent of those over forty
were recently employed. In general, the percentages with recent work
experience increased over time though not necessarily linearly. This
was particularlytrue for the cohorts of older women. Recent participation for women 35-39 rose from 20 percent of those hired in 1942to 100
percent. For women aged 40 or over, recent employment rose from 31
percent to 75 percent. Only women aged 30 to 34 show declining
participationrates.
WOMEN'S JOB PERFORMANCE RATINGS
Once it was clear that women were a necessary partof the laborforce,
the process of evaluatingthem began. Much of the anecdotal evidence
is laudatory. George Romney reported that "the consciousness of the
440
KossoudJi and Dresser
capabilityof women is growingall throughthe [auto]industry."15 Edsel
Ford was quoted as sayingthat the women workersat River Rouge were
"every bit as good as the men."'16 The media and government documents broughtpraiseto new levels when talkingabout women industrial
workers. While some suspicions may be cast on the objectivity of these
reports because a war was going on, other evidence confirms their
opinions. A survey taken at Ford in 1943 showed that women outproduced men and a majorstudy of 174firms in New York concluded that
women's productive efficiency was the same or better than men's.17
At the time of exit from the firmevery Ford employee was supposed
to be given a job performance rating-good, fair, or poor.'8 These
evaluations may not have been entirely objective and are likely to be
biased downward. It would be hard, for example, to justify firing
someone with a good job performancerating, and nearly every women
who was laid off or fired received a rating. When performanceratings
were listed, 57 percent were good, 34 percent were fair, and 9 percent
were poor.
These job performance ratings differed significantly by race-only
45.6 percent of African-Americanwomen had good job performances,
contrasted with 58.8 percent for other women. Given the climate of the
time and the particular difficulties of integrating African-American
women into the firm, these differentials are not unexpected. More
surprisingis the way these ratings differedby other characteristics. A
slightly lower percentage of marriedwomen (56.6 percent) than single
women (59.7 percent) received a ratingof good, while a slightly higher
percentage got a poor rating(10.4 percent versus 6.0 percent). This is
not due to race, because a lower percentage of African-American
women were married. There is a strong correlation between job
performanceand age. Very young women had the lowest job performance ratings-only 47 percent were rated good. The percentage
increased linearly(except for the 30 to 34 age group)with 63 percent of
the oldest women receiving the highest rating. This suggests that job
performance is not an indicator of past work histories. In fact, the
ratingsare significantlyhigherfor women who had never worked before
(68.4 percent were 'good') or who had not worked in the recent past
(66.7 percent) than for those who worked since 1940(53.8 percent). Of
those with previousjobs listed, only the personal service workers (71.4
percent) had approval ratings as high as those who had not worked
previously.
Is Quotedin Milkman,"Rosie the RiveterRevisited," p. 135.Originalsource is an Automotive
IndustriesMeetingfor the "Discussionof LaborSupplyand FutureLaborRequirements,"June
26, 1942in Detroit.
16
Quotedin Anderson, Wartime Women, p. 62.
'' Milkman,"Rosie the RiveterRevisited," p. 135.
18 Unfortunatelythese ratingsare missingfor 39 percentof the women. Of those with missing
evaluations,77 percentquit and 8.3 percenthad missingexit codes.
Women Workers during World War II
441
WOMEN'S EXIT FROM FORD
Were women pushed out of Ford at the end of the war? Only two of
the sample women were still in the firm in Januaryof 1946, two years
before the end of the sample period. Generally,exits are assumed to be
voluntary if the worker is listed as a "quit." Women who were fired or
laid-off are assumed to have preferredto continue working. Evidence
from UAW reports indicates, however, that often quits were the result
of management pressures. According to Milkman, plant rules were
selectively enforced against women. The UAW grievance files also
indicate that women were demoted to janitorialwork or given increased
work loads or new jobs with reducedbreak-inperiods. Most commonly,
however, they were transferred to third or swing shifts that their
schedules would not allow and so had to "quit" theirjobs.'9
Certainly some lay-offs were inevitable at the war's end. Reconversion required extensive retooling for domestic production and many
plants lowered productionfor a period of time. Willow Run, originally
designed to build bombers, was almost completely closed and most of
its work force laid-off, but even there, women were laid-off at much
higherrates than men. In all the Ford plants studied, 60.8 percent of the
women quit, 31.5 percent were laid-offand 2.9 percent were fired (4.8
percent had unknown exit codes).20 More importantly, there were
changes in the significanceof the exit categories over time. As the war
proceeded, and wound to a close, more and more women left theirjobs
involuntarily. None of those who left the firm in 1942 were fired or
laid-offand in 1943the figurewas just over 5 percent. In 1944,however,
the figurejumped to 35 percent and by 1945to over 82 percent. The exit
patterns for the male 1942-44 hiring cohort make it clear that women
were much more likely to have left involuntarily.For the sampleof men,
76 percent quit, 8 percent were fired, 12 percent were laid off, and 3
percent had unknown exits. Apparently, the inevitable reconversion
lay-offs were aimed disproportionatelyat women. In 1944 only 20
percent of men's exits from the firm were involuntaryand in 1945 the
figure was only 64 percent. Since there may be a sample truncation
problem for the 1942-44 cohort of men-missing from the sample are
male workers who escaped permanentreconversionlay-offs-the argument that women suffereddisproportionatelay-offs in the reconversion
period is strengthened.
The women who stayed on at Ford until 1945 apparentlywanted to
keep theirjobs. Table 4 shows that in the last year of the war more than
three-quartersof them were laid-offand only two stayed on for the next
Foner, Women, p. 389; Milkman,Gender at Work, pp. 113-14.
All the women firedwere between 20 and 24 years old. We cannot be certainwhy they were
firedbut it does not seem to be correlatedwith a lack of experience.Of the women fired89 percent
had some previous work experienceand of these 63 percenthad manufacturing
jobs before they
came to Ford. Accordingto the employee notes, at least one of those women was firedfor getting
pregnant.
'9
20
442
Kossoudji and Dresser
TABLE 4
DISTRIBUTION OF EXIT TYPE BY YEAR OF EXIT
Exit
Year
Quit
Fired
Laid-off
Unknown
Exit
Remained
at Ford
Available
Workersa
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
9.2
32.7
41.5
17.1
50.0
0.0
0.4
2.4
4.3
0.0
0.0
1.5
20.0
75.7
50.0
3.1
3.0
2.0
0.0
0.0
87.7
62.3
34.1
2.9
0.0
65
263
205
70
2
a
Available workers are all those who were working at Ford in that year.
Subsample of the Whatley-Wright sample of Ford hourly employees.
Source:
year. This differentialtreatmentof women was not the result of the shut
down of Willow Run, a plant that disproportionatelyemployed women.
A higherpercentageof samplemen thanwomen were workingat Willow
Run and in 1945only 65 percent of the men, comparedto 85 percent of
the women, were laid-off from the bomber plant. Lay-offs at Lincoln
and Rouge, neither of which shut down after the war, were even more
directed at women (67 percent versus 8 percent at Lincoln, 78 percent
versus 13 percent at Rouge).
Perhaps indicatingthe lack of alternativewell-payingjobs, AfricanAmericanwomen were much less likely than other women to quit. Only
42.2 percent of African-Americanwomen, but 63.9 percent of the others
left the firmvoluntarily.More than half of the African-Americanwomen
(51.1 percent) were laid-off. Ironically, during this same period Ford
was actively recruitingAfrican-Americanmen to the same plants and
they were the majorityof the immediatepost-WorldWar II hirings.
While the patriotic image of the marriedhousewife employed only
"for the duration"implies that marriedwomen would be the most likely
to leave work voluntarilyat the war's end, our data show that this was
not the case. In fact, single women were more likely to quit theirjobs
and more likely to be fired than were married, divorced or widowed
women. Only 26.5 percent of the single women were laid-off. One-third
of marriedwomen (33.2 percent)and half of those widowed or divorced
(49.9 percent)left the firminvoluntarily.Additionally,the age patternof
exits shows that the older women were more frequently forced out of
the firm. The last column of Table 5 shows the percentageof women in
each age group who quit (when the exit was known). Of the youngest
women almost 69 percent quit the firm. With the exception of the 35 to
39 age cohort, the quit rate steadily declines to 48.9 percent for the
oldest women at Ford.
Even in the revised history of Rosie the Riveter the assumptionis that
there were two significantgroups of women wartime workers: those
who worked before the war and those who did not. Housewives may
have been "patriotic" war workers but the pre-war workers were
simply taking advantage of the war to acquire high wages. Ford's
Women Workers during World War II
443
TABLE 5
DISTRIBUTION OF TYPE OF EXIT BY AGE AND RECENT EMPLOYMENT
(PERCENTAGES)
Age
under 20
20-24
25-29
30-34
35-39
40 or older
Employed Post-1940
YES
MAYBE
NO, BUT BEFORE
NO
a
Quit
Fired
Laid-Off
Unknown
Exit
Quita
Known Exits
59.5
67.0
63.6
56.5
65.7
46.8
0.0
9.6
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
27.0
20.2
34.6
41.3
25.7
48.9
13.5
3.2
1.8
2.2
8.6
4.3
68.8
68.1
64.8
57.8
71.9
48.9
64.2
60.7
56.7
57.3
5.8
1.1
0.0
1.3
27.5
29.2
43.3
36.0
2.5
9.0
0.0
5.3
65.8
65.4
56.7
60.6
This is the percentage who quit of those whose exit is known.
Subsample of the Whatley-Wright sample of Ford hourly employees.
Source:
employment records do not support this simple bifurcation. Women
with recent experience were more likely to leave voluntarilywhile those
with no previous employmentin the 1940'smore often left Ford because
of lay-offs. The second panel of Table 5 shows that less than 30 percent
of those who worked before the war were laid off by Ford (27.5 percent
of those who definitely worked before and 29.2 percent of those who
might have). Of the women with no previous work experience 36
percent were laid-offand 43.3 percent of those whose work experience
pre-datedthe forties left the firminvoluntarily.
Finally, women who considered themselves housewives before the
war were not simply patriots who quit at the war's end. In fact
housewives, manuallaborers, and service workers were the least likely
to have left the firm voluntarily(see Table 6). Many of them stayed on
at the firm until they had to be laid-off. Those who had worked in
manufacturingbefore their job at Ford were more likely to have left
voluntarily(64.6 percentquit)than were housewives (56.9 percent quit).
CONCLUSION
This paperrepresentsonly one step in the process of tryingto unravel
the history of wartime women workers. Even though our evidence is
limitedto women who were workingat the Ford Motor Companyduring
World War II, the results are enlightening.Neither the patriotic supply
nor the demandtheory can stand alone as an adequateinterpretationof
women's disappearancefrom industrialfirms in the post-war period.
The "housewife turnedpatriot"does not appearto describe very well
those women who worked in industry during the war. Less than 18
percent of the women in the Ford samplewere classified as housewives;
444
Kossoudji and Dresser
TABLE
6
DISTRIBUTION OF EXIT TYPE BY INDUSTRY OF PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT
(PERCENTAGES)a
Industry
Quit
Fired
Laid-Off
Valid Sample
Size
Total
Housewife
Personal service
Service
White collar or retail
Manual
Manufacturing
Student or
unemployed
64.4
56.9
65.5
55.0
70.0
50.0
64.6
75.0
3.1
2.0
3.4
5.0
1.4
0.0
5.0
0.0
33.6
41.2
31.0
40.0
28.6
50.0
30.3
25.0
295
51
29
20
70
10
99
16
9
97
295
Valid Sample Size
188
a
Percents are calculated on the basis of known exits.
Source: Subsample of the Whatley-Wright sample of Ford hourly employees.
even when women whose last recorded job ended before 1940 are
counted, the percentage is not much higher. More importantly, their
exit patterns do not conform to the broad strokes of this theory.
Housewives had the second highest lay-off rate for women workers.
Initial analysis suggests that those housewives who quit, did so extremely early in their tenure and in the war. True patriotswould neither
quit the job when more bombers were still needed, nor would they try
to keep theirjobs when the war wound down. Such singularlypatriotic
Rosie's were rare, however, and those who stayed until the end of the
war were almost all laid off.
There is strong evidence to support the descriptive aspects of the
demand theory. Most women had previous work histories and a
majorityheld a job just before working at Ford. These women experienced occupational and wage mobility of dramatic proportions. Yet,
apparentlycontradictingthe theory, a higherproportionof these women
than housewives voluntarilyquit the firm. Workingwomen may have
been convinced that the war initiated a new era of occupational
mobility. If previous job histories are an indication of the quality of
workingopportunitiesoutside of Ford then women's quit rates correlate
roughly with these outside opportunities. Of the women who were
previously employed, manufacturingand white collar workers had the
highest quit rates (if the heterogeneous personal service category is
eliminated). Manual workers and service workers had the lowest quit
rates.
Overall, the quit rates of all women are consistent with an economic
interpretationof their actions. Women with fewer options held on most
tightly to their jobs at Ford. African-Americanwomen, older married
women, housewives, and those who had the lowest paying (on average)
Women Workers during World War II
445
jobs before Ford left the firm involuntarily. Their departure was not
consistent with their job performance ratings. With the exception of
African-Americanwomen, these women had the highest job performance ratings.
How did women, management,and unions perceive and act out their
economic roles? War-timecontractswere on a cost-plus basis, but firms
returnedto cost minimizationobjectives after the war. Male and female
workers now had experience working together, women's job performance was as high, if not higherthan men's, and, in spite of attempts to
equalize pay for equal work, women's wages were lower than those for
men. By every indication,women were a lower cost, equally productive
labor force alternative.Yet not only were women's lay-off rates higher,
they were not rehiredor hired after reconversion even though the auto
industrywent througha significantexpansion in the late 1940's.
Why? Ruth Milkmanclaims that although the civil rights movement
was strong in the post-war era, leading to significant minority hiring
after the war, the women's movement was not. Thus, the UAW could
force managementto reverse its stand on African-Americanmen-and
African-Americanmen actually representeda majorityof new hires at
Ford in the years following World War II. But the UAW could not
promote women because there was not a local consensus or a strong
local movement favoring their work rights. The union, then, could not
force managementto reverse its stance againsthiringwomen in the post
war era.21
Yet this remains an unsatisfactory explanation. It still does not
explain why managementwanted to purge women from its work force
nor does it explain why the unionfailed to promoteits women members.
One idea that deserves exploration considers the possibility that both
the union, which was attemptingto consolidateits industrialpower after
giving up a number of rights during the war period, and management
realized that the wage and benefits packages that were being set up for
men were differentfrom those that women might require. Absenteeism
because of child care responsibilitieswas much higherfor women than
men. In particular,day care arrangements,maternityleave, and equal
pay for equal work were importantand potentially necessary components of a benefits package for women. Arranginga package that was
suitable for both male and female employees could have reduced or
even reversed the cost advantages of women workers.
This idea, while intriguing,remains unexplored. Yet its potential as
an explanation is confirmed by the hot issues in labor management
relations in today's labor market. Forty-five years later, these are the
benefits around which many contract negotiations revolve.
21 Milkman,"Rosie the Riveter Revisited."
446
Kossoudji and Dresser
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Kesselman, Amy, Fleeting Opportunities: Women Shipyard Workers in Portland and
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